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Carlow County - Ireland Genealogical Projects (IGP TM)


Kildavin House
Co Carlow


Kildavin House
Source: Buildings of Ireland

Kildavin House

Kildavin is a pleasant enough little village some eight miles north of the site of Duffry Hall but it seems to have had an irresistible attraction for the Colcloughs not only from the Duffry but from Wexford town, Ballyteige, Boley, Kilkenny and even Dublin. Its five large 18th Century houses, Kildavin House, Upper Kildavin, Lower Kildavin, Crowsgrove and Elmgrove, just outside Tullow, were at one time all occupied by Colcloughs. Even some of 'Sir' Vesey's descendants may have moved there. In 1648 Dudley Colclough of Monart was living quietly at Garryhasten and was married to Katherine Esmonde, the daughter of Sir John Esmonde of Ballinastraw. At about the same time there was a Captain Thomas Colclough in charge of a garrison of 62 men in Wexford.

His identity is something of a mystery unless he is he Thomas, brother of John of Burslem and son of William of Grays Inn, who seems to have been in close contact with his Irish cousins. In 1656 we find that this Thomas, as part of the Cromwellian settlement, had been granted some of Dudley's lands at Monart. and 1,262 acres in the parish of Carnew. However there are no further records of him after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. For the next 70 years there were no Colcloughs in the area till Henry arrived

Henry was the youngest son of Dudley of Duffry. He settled there in 1729 on his marriage to Margaret, daughter of John Beauchamp of Ballylogher who claimed royal descent through the houses of both York and Lancaster, and had four sons and a daughter. Henry's eldest son, Dudley, took over Bohermore House, Co. Carlow, which his father had acquired, and on his death in 1759 this passed to his brother Beauchamp who had married Bridget, daughter of John McCarthney of Dublin. Beauchamp's descendants spread themselves over Canada, the United States and the U.K. but there are few parts of the world in which they have not left a record of at least temporary residence.

Beauchamp's two sons Henry and Beauchamp II married the Crawford sisters of Millwood, Co. Fermanagh, whose uncle was Guy Carelton, 1st Lord Dorchester and Governor of Canada. One branch of the Henry's family went to Charleston, S.C where there are still descendants to be found. They have changed the spelling of the name to Colcolough. All of Beauchamp II's children went to Canada in the early 1800s to benefit, one presumes, from nepotism. A daughter of Beauchamp's, Bridget, married the chieftain of the Urquhart Clan of Aberdeenshire, and so another remarkable name begins to appear in family christenings.

Three other Colclough families of Kildavin should be mentioned. In a census of Kildavin and Clonegal taken in 1811, a copy of which is in the possession of Dr. Kevin Whelan, in the townland of Lackabeg (the village of Kildavin) are noted Patrick Colclough a weaver, seven in the family, 3 males and 3 females, and Patrick Colclough, farmer, with four in the family, , 1 male and 3 females. By the time of Griffith's valuation in 1850 there is only one Colclough in the parish - a Patrick who lives in one of the smaller cottages of Kildavin.

One of these may be the Patrick who in 1817 applied for an assisted passage to Canada. It is also a possibility, though unlikely, that these Patricks might be offspring of "Sir" Vesey. In the 19th Century another Colclough family appeared when John Colclough whose family sprang from Clomantagh, moved into Ballonvalley Farm, near Myshall,.  John, who married Emma Melbourne in 1891 was at Ballonvalley  (possibly as Steward) in 1893 when his daughter Olive was born. 

Their son Jack was born in 1892 in Co Carlow, probably at Ballonvalley. The family was at Maginstown, Tipperary in 1996 when their daughter mother, Maud, was born.  His father was John of Clomantagh, who had married Susan Claxton. The grandfather, another John, was farming Clomantagh in 1827 and was married to Francis Headon.  John's ancestry has yet to be fully explored, though his descendants are to be found both in the area and in Canada and America.


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